But who knows? Perhaps we are all headed for destruction. The Maya wise men all across Yucatan predict that the world will end in the year 2000 y pico--"and a little." How many years will that "a little" be? The Great Cycle of the Maya calendar which began in darkness on 13 August 3114 BC will come to an end after almost five millennia on 23 December AD 2012, when many of you who read this will still be alive. On that day, the ancient Maya scribes would say, it will be 13 cycles, 0 katuns, 0 tuns, 0 uinals, and 0 kins since the beginning of the Great Cycle. The day will be 4 Ahau 3 Kankin, and it will be ruled by the Sun God, the ninth Lord of the Night. The moon will be eight days old, and it will be the third lunation in a series of six. And what is to happen? A Katun prophecy in the Book of Chilam Balam of Tizimin reads:

Ca hualahom caan       Then the sky is divided
  Ca nocpahi peten       Then the land is raised,
Ca ix hopp i           And then there begins
  U hum ox lahun ti ku   The Book of the 13 Gods.
Ca uch i               Then occurs
  Noh hai cabil          The great flooding of the Earth
Ca lik i               The arises
  Noh Itzam Cab Ain      The great Itzam Cab Ain
Tz'ocebal u than       The ending of the word,
  U uutz' katun          The fold of the Katun:
Lai hun yeciil         That is a flood
  Bin tz'oce(ce)bal      Which will be the ending of
  u than katun           the world of the Katun.